NORTH KOREA:United Nations aid agencies warned yesterday of an impending food crisis in North Korea where summer flooding destroyed crops and worsened a chronic shortage of grain.
"The situation is indeed critical," said Simon Pluess, spokesman of the World Food Programme (WFP).
"About a third of the population never eats enough and half of the population goes for periods in the year when they have an insufficient food intake."
North Korea has still not recovered from famine in the 1990s that experts say killed about 2.5 million people, or 10 per cent of the population. Major storms in July damaged grain-producing areas and triggered a new round of scarcities.
The reclusive country is estimated to have at least a one million tonne cereal deficit in 2007.
One in three North Korean children are already chronically malnourished, stunting their growth, he said.
Foreign assistance for Pyongyang has fallen sharply after the Stalinist government restricted aid agencies' access, the agencies said.
The WFP is feeding only 700,000 of the 1.9 million North Koreans it has identified as needing food aid. This was because it received just 15 per cent of the $102 million it sought for the country this year, Mr Pluess said.